Next-generation wireless networks target dense deployment scenarios where many heterogeneous devices, from high-end laptops, to low-power IoT (Internet of Things) devices and wearables, sometimes using different standards, must co-exist and operate reliably and efficiently. With the increased deployment of internet of things (TOT) devices and wearables, increasing the energy efficiency without increasing complexity/cost is highly desirable in future dense wireless networks.
Current Wi-Fi networks, implementing MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output), utilize multiple RF chains and has become the norm. However, for IoT and wearable type devices this is not efficient due to size and cost constraints. The white paper entitled “Spatial Modulation for Improved Performance of Next-Generation WLAN”, by A. G. Helmy, S. Azizi, T. J. Kenney, and N. Al-Dhahir, filed herewith and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, provides a discussion of the application of the spatial modulation (SM) waveform to WLAN (commercially named Wi-Fi). In the paper, it is discussed that the SM concept is applied to the multi-input multi-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) transceiver architecture of the 802.11-WLAN standards calling it spatially-modulated OFDM (SM-OFDM) Wi-Fi. SM-OFDM helps the network access point (AP) to efficiently communicate with a diverse set of devices while addressing challenging design trade-offs between energy efficiency, implementation complexity, and overall network spectral efficiency.